Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,
I have heard grape wood is not suited for high humidity conditions because it has a tendency to mold easily in humid conditions. Is this the experience everyone has had with grape wood in humid conditions? Recently, I bought a VERY large piece of grape wood at an expo to use as the main piece of "furniture" in a cage I am building. I simply could not resist buying it, it is just so perfect. It is about four feet tall, has a two foot tall, six inch diameter hollow trunk, and about two feet of branches, that make the piece about three feet wide. The new piece of grape wood is for my prehensile-tailed skinks, which require humidity of about 70% or more. Can this new piece of grape wood survive in this level of humidity? I have heard(from the dart frog forum) that wood in high humidity has an initial "bloom" of mold/mildew that subsides in a couple of weeks, then it doesn't mold any more. This being said, does that mean it will not deteriorate after the initial mold "bloom"? Is there something I can do to the wood that would make it more resistant to humidity? I thought I could spray it with some sort of lacquer, but I am not sure if this would work. I was also thinking I could care for the grape wood, the way people care for wood cutting boards. I believe they coat the cutting boards with a food grade mineral oil then with a coat of bee's wax. I am not sure if it would work, and I think it would be quite expensive to do with my piece of grape wood. I think the reason I thought of this idea is that I figure it would be safe for using around my lizards since it is safe to use around food. I am sorry if my post was long winded. I just really want this piece of grape wood to work in my new cage. Thank you for your help, Josh

I don't know a lot about grape wood, but I'm certain it will be a lot less likely to grow mold and mildew in a Corucia cage than a dart frog cage.

If you do want to seal it, I would recommend mixing the mineral oil and beeswax together before applying it. This is how it's done for cutting boards/butcher block, although I think they use standard parfin wax most of the time.

Go to google to find out the proper way to make this wax and oil mixture.
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Current snakes:

0.0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Java locale (green)

1.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - Jave local (green)

2.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Seleyar locale (all black)

1.2 Gonyosoma janseni - Celebes locale (Black & Tan)

Not sure about the sealing issue, but grapevine wood will mold and in some cases continue to mold constantly if the environmental conditions are right. Also, the more exposure to water that it gets it tends to turn black and will quickly rot.
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Matt Campbell

"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in." John Muir